So looking at the future offerings, we found one that would be good to check out the group. However, our first experience was to be one found not in VA but a favorite of ours in Maryland, Black Ankle Vineyards.
So with high hopes, we headed out with what we thought was going to be about 18 others to meet at Black Ankle. For those of you who haven’t been there, Black Ankle is about 1.5 hours North of D.C. in Mid Maryland, and slightly East North East of Fredrick, Maryland about 8 miles north of I-70.Upon arriving things were really crazy, a groupon or living social bus was in the middle of their tasting. A second group was there for a tour offered every Saturday and Sunday at 1 P.M. as weather permits to get a full tour of the vineyard (See Black Ankle web site for details), and then somewhere in there was the people we were supposed to be “meeting” with.
Watching the bus leave, the vineyard tour group started tasting, and still no obvious group of 18 formed, the wife and I started our tasting. Meanwhile, I checked into the group’s site to see if anyone was commenting on what was going on.
Our tasting started with their 2010 Viognier. Although the nose was a great melon floral mix, the wine has such a bad acid bitter middle that it was almost dumped. If you know me, I can’t dump wine, but this is the closest I had ever come. Since the wine wasn’t that striking I took this opportunity to check the clubs website, and found other members had arrived and after a quick comment, I was directed to where I could find them.
Following the Viognier the 2010 Bedlam was poured. It is a white blend of Viognier 36%, 23% Muscat, 17% Gruner Veltiner, 17 % Albarino, and 7 % Chardonnay. This too had a very pleasant fruit and floral nose, and was much better white wine; it still had some of the bitter characteristics of the Viognier.
On the red side on their standard tasting they started with their 2010 Passeggiata, this was interesting wine blend of Syrah and Viognier wines. This was the best of their red wine standard tasting wines for the wife and I at least. They followed this up by their 2009 Rolling Hills which is almost a Bordeaux blend with Cab Sav, Cab Franc, Malbec, PV, and Syrah. It had muted red fruits on the noise the continued into the wine with an earthy finish.
That ended their standard tasting you get for five dollars, for an additional five you get to taste two of their bigger reds and finish with their red port style wine. Not wanting to be gipped on my experience, we continued with their “reserve tasting.”
The first of their reserve reds was 2008 Crumbling. Rock, it’s a blend of all the grapes in the Rolling Hills with a little Merlot to add complexity. This showed a lot of bright red fruit mostly raspberry, the finished off with light but firm tannins. This wine can be paired with lots of food, and the both will be better for it.
After that we moved on to their Slate wine, a blend of their Cab Sav, Syrah, Cab Franc, Malbec, and PV. It had much more earthy herby nose than the Crumbling Rock. It also had a much deeper earth finish that previous reserve. However, I think it is much less versatile due to those characteristics.
Lastly, they offered their port style wine Terra Dulce I, it contained a blend of all their red (and white!) grapes. It is a delicious dessert wine. Although much higher in alcohol content, it is not burning or over power in the mouth and only after it goes down the throat does it have the alcoholic warming affect. It gets a high recommendation from this red neck; even for those who don’t typically like dessert or port wines.
The wife and I decided to take a bottle of the Passeggiata back to the table to enjoy. Once the rest of our group finished their tasting, we enjoyed an after of wine drinking and discussing of wine, economy, politics, and just getting to know one another. As a first experience, I would say the Virginia wine club was a big thumbs up, and the wife and I are excited to go to the next meeting of wine lovers of VA. As for the winery, we thought all in all the wines were only OK, and the best ones were well over priced for the market they are in. It is a shame as Black Ankle was a favorite of ours for the Maryland wine community.
